I think either find a cofounder who can handle the social/promotion side for you or give up the idea of running your own startup and instead get in early as a dev for someone else's.
I have just quit my job to work full time on an idea I have (still very early stages atm so nothing public right now) but I'm the same as you i.e. self promotion doesn't come easily or naturally (frankly I hate it!).
But... I've accepted that if I want this to go anywhere I'm going to have to work on the self promotion side and somehow learn to be comfortable with it. In the last month I've created a twitter account (still learning the ropes on that) and a github account and I'm also thinking about how I could run a small blog (but I'm only going to do this if I think I've got enough worthwhile things to say - there's nothing worse than a neglected blog with boring content!).
I find all this social stuff a bit scary (and a potentially large time sink) but there's no way around it if you want to get your idea out there, make connections and get noticed.
One plus, as a single founder working in isolation at the moment, is that developing the social side a bit will help keep me honest and motivated because working in a vacuum isn't easy (or healthy).
Something else I forgot which I'm going to try: use something like meetup.com to find a few startup groups in your vicinity and go to one or two. I think it will help break the taboo a bit and make it easier in the future to talk to strangers about your idea (face to face or online).
I have just quit my job to work full time on an idea I have (still very early stages atm so nothing public right now) but I'm the same as you i.e. self promotion doesn't come easily or naturally (frankly I hate it!).
But... I've accepted that if I want this to go anywhere I'm going to have to work on the self promotion side and somehow learn to be comfortable with it. In the last month I've created a twitter account (still learning the ropes on that) and a github account and I'm also thinking about how I could run a small blog (but I'm only going to do this if I think I've got enough worthwhile things to say - there's nothing worse than a neglected blog with boring content!).
I find all this social stuff a bit scary (and a potentially large time sink) but there's no way around it if you want to get your idea out there, make connections and get noticed.
One plus, as a single founder working in isolation at the moment, is that developing the social side a bit will help keep me honest and motivated because working in a vacuum isn't easy (or healthy).